A/N – Ok, so I know that Vito would technically be slurring drunkenly in Spanish rather than English – but I'm using my writer's prerogative here. Besides, I can't write Spanish when the character's sober so I'm damn sure I wouldn't know how they'd speak when drunk!!
Chapter 12 – Breaking Point.
"Break his spirit and then break his neck."
Even with the constant ringing in his ears that his last kicking had left him with, Dino heard the growled command and a strange thing happened, it was as if a calmness settled over him. So this is how he was going to die. Even stranger, the voice that echoed the words 'so this is how it ends' around and around inside his head was clearly identifiable as the slow drawl of John Wayne. Dino had never envisioned his inner voice to sound like John Wayne, he'd expected perhaps a Bruce Willis in Die Hard mode, Sean Connery's James Bond or even Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones at a push, but not particularly John Wayne. But hey, he wasn't about to grumble, the Duke wasn't an inner voice to be ashamed of; he was a tough bastard. Dino intentionally stopped his train of thought right there, he was not making sense, even to himself, perhaps the solitary confinement and the frequent violence was finally starting to get to him. He wondered idly what the Duke would do in his situation. Right, that was enough, he was starting to plan his actions based on his inner voice, an inner voice that he hadn't known he'd had until a couple of minutes ago. He had to get out of here before he went completely crazy.
He cleared his mind. There were a few things that Dino was certain of in his life and one of them was this; they could break every damn bone in his body, but they would never, never break his spirit. He'd go down fighting, and spit in their faces with his dying breath if he had to.
"Bring it on, assholes." He whispered to the empty space around him.
The door to his makeshift cell creaked open a little way and Dino braced his body and his mind for the worst that they could throw at him…
The door set into the wall opposite to where Dino was lying opened a little more, not much, certainly not enough for a person to get through and to his surprise he saw Nika's face appear in the thin aperture. The woman's countenance was set into a serious expression, the smile that had graced her features the last time he had seen her was noticeably absent now. She nodded almost imperceptibly before sending something skittering across the hard floor, coming to rest next to his foot, but before he could see exactly what this gift was she closed the door again, cutting off the source of light. In the darkness Dino reached down and retrieved the object from next to his boot and instantly, as soon as he touched it, he knew what it was; a gun.
His deep interest in guns and firearms had started at an early age, and the wealth of weapons related knowledge that he had stored in his brain, even as a young boy, was phenomenal. Most of his family and friends had expected him to become some sort of sociopath, a gun-toting lunatic, and in a way Dino realised that he hadn't disappointed their expectations. It was just that he had been trained to hone and control his particular psychological quirk. He was a sociopath that took orders, well, most of the time anyway. Now, as he ran his hands over the cold, hard metal, gauging the size and weight of the weapon, his fingers finding the little embellishments that gave away the make and model he crossed particular weapons off his mental list until he narrowed it down to just a few possibilities and then to just one. Dino identified the weapon as a Sig P226 and then as his fingers found their way to the back of the grip a small smile crept onto his face as he found one particular groove in the metal frame, this wasn't just any Sig P226 it was a P226 'Navy' model. More accurately, it was his P226 'Navy'; the same weapon that had been taken from his unconscious body along with the automatic weapon when the rebel gang had captured him after his fall from the helicopter. Dino knew this weapon inside out and could rattle the specifications off without thinking about it; .9mm calibre, height 5.5 inches, length 7.7 inches, weight 34 ounces, fitted with a 15 round magazine, the only statistic he couldn't call accurately to mind was the number of times that this gun had saved his life; he'd lost count of that a long time ago, but it had to be well into the hundreds by now. He swiftly checked the magazine and found it full before snapping it back into place, disengaging the safety and cocking the weapon.
"Bring it on." He reiterated, this time with a great deal more determination than before.
When the door finally opened again, Dino was ready. Since Nika had handed him his ticket out of this shit-hole he'd been gradually working at regaining some movement in his limbs, standing up and working the pain out of his tired and battered muscles, moving his arms so that he felt the joints crack; if he was honest he was sure that his joints had cracked in several places where they weren't meant to, but he'd have to get that sorted out when he was out of here and could actually access some sort of medical care. At this moment a comprehensive knowledge of exactly what bones were broken wasn't going to help him get out of here, in fact he'd rather not know and then deal with it later.
Right now, the pain that had coursed through his body just an hour earlier was barely noticeable, adrenaline tended to do that to you, it psyched you up and made you feel virtually invincible and anaesthetized any pain. Now he was mobile and ready to fight his way out.
The guy that staggered into the room was obviously drunk; his gait was uneven and meandering and he stank of booze. Dino recognised him instantly, this guy was one of his regular torturers, had been present at virtually every beating he'd received; Vito. A look of satisfaction appeared on Dino's face, satisfaction that this evil bastard was going to be the first one he'd kill. It took the man a couple of seconds to focus on Dino, initially confused by the fact that the captive wasn't curled up in the corner where he usually was, but was standing. In his inebriated state he had clearly mistaken the expression on Dino's face for fear of some kind.
"So, th' big 'merican man s'wake. Not so tough without your guns, heh 'merican man?" He slurred his speech and it took Dino a few second to work out what the hell he was actually saying.
"Who says I don't have a gun?" Dino raised his arm, bringing the gun to the drunkard's head and fired a shot straight through his skull without hesitation. "Asshole."
Dino knew he had to work quickly, the shot would have attracted the attention of anyone in or near the building. His first job was to rifle through the dead man's pockets to see if he was carrying anything that might approximate another weapon to back up his own in case he ran out of ammunition. He struck gold in the guy's back pocket, a handgun, which from the weight of it Dino guessed had a full magazine. He cocked the weapon and stuck it in the back of his own pants.
He slid around the doorframe, keeping his back firmly in contact with the roughly plastered walls. He had to pause for a couple of minutes and allow his eyes to acclimatize to the bright sunlight which was so different from the darkened surroundings he'd become used to. Then a movement a few metres away brought his attention back to the present and he raised his gun again, ready to fire, but stopped himself just in time when he recognised Nika. She was clearly startled at finding Dino pointing a gun directly at her, but relaxed when he dropped the weapon so that it was pointing at the floor.
"Dino!" She lifted a hand to point behind him and he turned and fired simultaneously, seeing the fear in her eyes and knowing instantly what was wrong. The rebel that had been creeping up behind him dropped to the ground in a heap, instantly dead. Dino's first reaction was to go to Nika, he took her gently by the arm and guided her through a door that turned out to lead into a small broom-closet. He reached around and pulled out the gun he had taken off the body of his first victim, flipping it over, holding it by the barrel and offering it to her grip first. She took it and pulled the slide back, noting with a nod that there was a bullet already loaded in the chamber and that the gun was ready to be fired. Dino watched her, mesmerised by her comfort with the weapon, impressed with her ease of use.
"Safety's off. If anyone opens the door, shoot them…No, let me revise that; if anyone other than me opens the door, shoot them."
She nodded and he quickly bent his head down to lay a small kiss on the hand that wasn't holding the gun.
"Thank-you for helping me."
"No, thank-you."
"Why are you thanking me? I haven't done anything for you," 'yet' he added mentally.
"You've done more than you know."
"Like what?" He was confused, wondering if he'd forgotten about some big, heroic gesture that he had performed.
"You've shown me that not all men are the same." She reached up and tentatively laid a small kiss on his cheek and laughed when she saw Dino's face flush red.
"Stay here, I'll find you when it's over."
She nodded and he shut the door, leaving her alone in the darkness.
Dino walked quickly to the body of the fallen man and picked up the Kalashnikov that was looped around his neck, swinging it around his own shoulders instead.
A rat-tat of gunfire from the semi-automatic weapon in Dino's hands brought the next two rebels down, one falling on top of the other. He had only had chance to check one of them for weapons when another man came around the corner, AK47 in hand. Dino just had time to pick the body of the top man up and use him as a human shield, praying that the shooter was far enough away so that the bullets would lose a little of their momentum before they ploughed into his fleshy barrier, if they hadn't then they would surely explode straight through the human shield and hit Dino as a secondary target. The fact that he felt no pain meant that thankfully the bullets had been halted by the corpse he was holding in his hands. Dino hooked his arms under the corpse's armpits and grabbed the rifle that he hadn't yet managed to disentangle from his victim, using it to shoot a barrage of fire in the direction of the rebel. The bullets hit their mark and Dino heard the wet explosions as the projectiles ploughed into his opponent's living flesh. Poking his head around the human shield he saw yet another body crumpled on the floor. As he let the man in his arms drop to the floor, Dino pulled a knife that he had extracted from one of his previous failed attackers and cut the fabric strap that held the rifle in place, allowing it to slip off as he fell lifelessly to the ground. As such, in this position Dino simply wasn't ready when yet another hulking rebel stepped around the corner brandishing a handgun.
-BANG-
The shot echoed down the corridor that was now littered with dead bodies. Dino was surprised to find it didn't hurt. When he'd been shot in the past it had hurt like hell, perhaps he'd finally endured so much pain that any more simply didn't register on the receptors in his brain. It wasn't until the guy in front of him, the one with the gun, fell down with blood pouring out of a bullet hole in his neck that Dino decided something was not quite right with this scene, he checked his body quickly and found no gun shot wound. He hadn't been shot. Then where the hell had that bang come from? He turned to look over his shoulder and found Nika standing with the door to the cupboard pushed open, one foot inside the tiny space and one foot outside, her face flushed with what looked like anger. The gun that Dino had given her was raised level; a curl of smoke issued from the barrel suggesting it had only just been fired.
"How…? What…?" Dino looked between her and the body of the man lying in front of him, the man who he had thought was going to be his killer. She'd shot a guy and saved his life and all he could manage was 'How…? What…?' sometimes Dino got incredibly frustrated with his vocabulary when it seemed to go AWOL on him.
"They're brothers." Nika pointed between the man who Dino had used as a human shield and the one she had just shot. "There's a hole in the cupboard door, I was watching. When I saw this one, I knew his brother wouldn't be far behind." She walked a few steps forward, passing Dino and towering over the body of the most recently killed rebel and lifted her gun once again, putting a bullet straight through the back of the already dead man's skull, spitting on his lifeless frame and muttering a choice selection of curses in Spanish before repeating the action for his brother.
"Nika, I think they're already dead." He ran the situation through his mind and suddenly understood the source of her aggression. "Did they…?" He was going to say 'rape you' but thought that she would understand his question without him actually having to speak the words out loud, he was right.
"Si." She nodded, but refused to lift her head to meet his gaze. "I've wanted to do that for a long time."
Dino gave her a few seconds for the reality of the situation to sink in before hustling her back into her hiding place again and continuing on his path ready to bring down as many of the enemy as it took for him to get out of here.
To be continued…
